Girl Gamer Makes a Killing

Fifteen minutes ago, I thought I was good at video games. I spent an entire summer in college playing Halo like it was my job. But right now, my opponent is blasting me to shreds again and again, knocking me and my big rocket launcher to oblivion with a peashooter -- and a snicker. Bonnie "Xena" Burton, a 15-year-old professional gamer, is whupping my ass online at Microsoft's Xbox Live site.

Bonnie was an early member of the PMS Clan, an all-girl gaming club of more than 250 members. Their motto: "We may have boobs, but that doesn't make us nØØbs." I glance at the scoreboard and feel sorry for any gamer who takes her on without taking her seriously. Our current score: 25 to -2. Translation: She's killed me 25 times, and I've landed on my own grenade twice. When I look back at the main screen, I'm dead again.

Luckily, Bonnie isn't here just to chase me down with a smoking barrel. When she's not competing, she moonlights as one of 14 elite gaming coaches at Gaming-Lessons.com. The business was started in 2005, and it already has celebrity clients like NBA players Luke Walton and Richard Jefferson and rappers Lil Dru and Moka Blast.

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AllPeers Adds Chat: Becomes Relevant Again

AllPeers, a Firefox P2P file sharing plugin, had incredible hype when it launched in August (the rumors had been around for nearly a year at that point). People were calling it the “killer app” for Firefox, and the company is backed by early investors in Skype, Mangrove Capital Partners and Index Ventures. And since AllPeers is a Firefox extension, it works across all platforms.

But some of the hype was lost as AllPeers found itself among a flock of competitors - we compared four of them here. We named it the best, but noted that all parties to the transfer had to have AllPeers installed, something some of the others didn’t require.

Today they released a new version of AllPeers. There are a number of minor tweaks, including the way they handle file organization. But the exciting update is that they added a pop up chat feature. This would be extremely popular as a stand alone plugin, and adding it to AllPeers is a no brainer. You can now chat with friends as you send files, or just chat with friends without sending files.

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Sun's Looking Glass 3D Desktop Released

Sun Microsystems this week released "Looking Glass," a 3D desktop interface that provides an OS-neutral version of some of the elements found in OS X and Microsoft's newly-released Vista OS.

Looking Glass, which was first shown off in 2003 and released as an open-source project in 2004, allows users to run a Java-based desktop environment on top of Windows, or on Linux or Solaris. The software allows certain applications to be run in a "2.5D" environment, allowing them to be rotated in 3D space to maximize the available desktop space.

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Microsoft has filed for two patents covering technology used to organize and read syndicated Web feeds, such as those delivered via the widely used Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, family of formats.

The pair of applications were made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for what appears to be the first time on Thursday, following the expiration of a requisite 18-month window in which applications are generally kept secret.

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Red Hat earnings shrug off Oracle threat

Red Hat's net income subsided in its most recent quarter, but revenue increased as the Linux seller shrugged off the arrival of Oracle as a direct competitor.

For the quarter ended November 30, the company's net income was $15.5 million, down 37 percent compared with the same period a year ago. But its revenue increased 45 percent to $105.8 million. The net income of 14 cents per share, excluding various charges like stock option expenses, beat the average expectation of 12 cents per share predicted by analysts surveyed by First Call.

"Revenue, earnings and cash flow all exceeded our expectations," said Red Hat Chief Executive Matthew Szulik in a conference call. Factoring in expenses--including $8.5 million in stock option expenses--the company's net income was 7 cents per share.

"It looks like the world is not coming to an end for you guys after all," said Merrill Lynch analyst Kash Rangan shortly afterward.

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